QUANTUM MECHANICS, A HALF CENTURY LATER

Transcription

1 QUANTUM MECHANICS, A HALF CENTURY LATER

2 EPISTEME A SERIES IN THE FOUNDATIONAL, METHODOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE SCIENCES, PURE AND APPLIED Editor: MARIO BUNGE Foundations and Philosophy of Science Unit, McGill University Advisory Editorial Board: RUTHERFORD ARIS, Chemistry, University of Minnesota DANIEL E, BERLYNE, Psychology, University of Toronto HUBERT M. BLALOCK, Sociology, University of Washington GEORGE BUGLIARELLO, Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York NOAM CHOMSKY, Linguistics, MIT KARL W. DEUTSCH, Political science, Harvard University BRUNO FRITSCH, Economics, E.T.H. Zurich ERWIN HIEBERT, History of science, Harvard University ARISTID LINDENMA YER, Biology, University of Utrecht JOHN MYHILL, Mathematics, SUNY at Buffalo JOHN MA YN ARD SMITH, Biology, University of Sussex RAIMO TUOMELA, Philosophy, University of Helsinki VOLUME 5

3 QU ANTUM MECHANICS, A HALF CENTURY LATER PAPERS OF A COLLOQUIUM ON FIFTY YEARS OF QUANTUM MECHANICS, HELD AT THE UNIVERSITY LOUIS PASTEUR, STRASBOURG, MAY 2-4, 1974 Edited by JOSE LEITE LOPES Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg and MICHEL PATY Centre de Recherches Nucleaires et Universite Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT-HOLLAND/BOSTON-U.S.A.

4 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Colloquium on Fifty Years of Quantum Mechanics, University Louis Pasteur, Quantum mechanics. (Episteme ; v. 5) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Quantum theory-congresses. I. Lopes, Jose Leite. II. Paty, Michel, III. Title. QCI73.96.C ' ISBN -13: e-isbn -13: DOl: / Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright 1977 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland and copyrightholders as specified on appropriate pages Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner

5 T ABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD PREFACE VII a J. A. WHEELER / Include the Observer in the Wave Function? 1 A. FRENKEL / On the Possible Connections between Quantum Mechanics and Gravitation 19 J. M. JAUCH / The Quantum Probability Calculus 39 G. CASSINELLI and E. G. BELTRAMETTI / Quantum Logics and Ideal Measurements of the First Kind 63 c. PIRON / A First Lecture on Quantum Mechanics 69 s. P. SHUSHURIN / Essay on the Development of the Statistical Theory of the Calculus of Probability 89 M. MUGUR-SCHACHTER / The Quantum Mechanical One- System Formalism, Joint Probabilities and Locality 107 B. D'ESPAGNAT/On Propositions and Physical Systems 147 J.-M. LEVY-LEBLOND / Towards a Proper Quantum Theory 171 D. BOHM and B. HILEY I On the Intuitive Understanding of Non-Locality as Implied by Quantum Theory 207 R. LESTIENNE / Four Ideas of David Bohm on the Relationship between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity 227 R. DAUDEL / The Role of Quantum Mechanics in the Set-up of a Mathematical Government among Molecular Populations 237 G. LOCHAK / Hidden Parameters, Hidden Probabilities 245 M. P A TY / The Recent Attempts to Verify Quantum Mechanics 261 M. LAMEHI-RACHTI and w. MITTIG / Spin Correlation Measurement in Proton-Proton Scattering and Comparison with the Theories of the Local Hidden Variables 291 INDEX 305

6 FOREWORD The articles collected in this volume were written for a Colloquium on Fifty Years of Quantum Mechanics which was held at the University Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg on May 2-4, 1974, in commemoration of the original work by De Broglie in It is our hope that this volume will convey to the reader the idea that quantum mechanics, besides being a fundamental tool for scientific workers today, is also a source of a number of questions and thoughts about the interpretation of the foundation of quantum mechanics itself. This gives rise to problems of a philosophical and logical character and has repercussions on other domains such as the theory of gravitation. Besides the papers presented at the Colloquium, an article has been included by D. Bohm and B. Hiley. This compensates, perhaps, for the article of S. Kochen, whose manuscript unfortunately did not reach us in time for inclusion in ~his volume. A few months after this Colloquium we learned of the death of Professor Jauch, who had taken a lively and crucial part in its discussions. We have been extremely saddened by the news of his death, and would like to express our long standing indebtedness to him as a physicist. We are grateful to Professor B. d'espagnat who kindly helped us in organizing the Colloquium meetings and to Professor G. Ourisson who, as President of the Louis Pasteur University, gave us encouragement and support to our enterprise. We would further like to express our thanks to all those who have contributed to the work involved in the Colloquium and the publication of this book, and especially to Dr J. Simmons who agreed to check the English version of several contributions. J. LEITE LOPES M. PATY

7 PREFACE A few years ago, H. Barreau, G. Monsonego, M. Paty and myself organized the Seminar on the Foundations of Science at the U niversity Louis Pasteur of Strasbourg. Modern society recognizes the importance of science in the world through its technological applications and the multitude of appliances, gadgets and mechanisms which fill and often invade our daily life. Scientists, dominated by the spirit of competition in their respective fields of specialization, often pass too quickly from one interpretation scheme to another and thus may stifle their research work by being over-anxious to publish more and more. It would therefore be beneficial to organize in the universities, parallel to the different specialized seminars on recent experimental work and theoretical models, seminars on the foundation of science, its historical evolution, and the description and genesis of its ideas. That is what we have tried to set up at Strasbourg over the past few years; it is with this motivation that the Conference 'A Half Century of Quantum Mechanics' was organized, and these papers collected and published. It is already fifty years ago that the intuition of De Broglie laid the foundation stone of the theoretical structure that houses the fundamental laws of atomic, nuclear and sub-nuclear phenomena. As everybody knows, some fundamental notions of quantum mechanics put forward by De Broglie himself and by Einstein and Niels Bohr, amongst others, are still open to further discussion. It is true that perhaps a great majority of physicists remain content in calculating the effective cross-sections of collisions and reactions and the energy levels of physical systems etc... with the help of quantum mechanics. However, others try in addition to examine thoroughly its physical and philosophical significance, and are sometimes led to modify some basic ideas of the theory. Such discussions may indeed contribute to the progress of scientific thought. We hope that this collection of papers which has been

8 x PREFACE requested on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the thesis of Louis De Broglie, will contribute to that aim. We regret the recent death of Leon Rosenfeld, the eminent physicist, who was one of the prominent members of the Copenhagen school, and who came several times to Strasbourg to participate in the seminars on the Foundations of Science. Let us dedicate this work to the memory of L. Rosenfeld. J. LEITE LOPES